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Mr.Nobody's ever changing daily driver MKII Jetta

I figured I would finally make a thread to track progress on my car, since I about to do refresh of the entire car. I am touching a lot of bases with the refresh, brakes, suspension, interior, stereo, tune up, chipped ecu and a couple of changes to the outside.

A little history I am the third owner and have had it almost 7 years. The first 2 years I really didn't do anything to it other than the initail clean up and tune up. I had to rebuild the dash before I could really start driving it it had been broken into while it was sitting for sale. These are the only pictures I have from then. These were probably about three months after I had bought it and had gotten ready for my 100 mile round trip commute at the time.

Thats how it looked from 5/06-12/08

In the beginning of 09' I got some new wheels and H&R springs and a badgeless grill.
09' Leavenworth Cruise

During 09' into 10' I did a bunch of little things but as you can probably tell I am horrible at documenting the changes in pictures. One the reasons for starting this thread.

A couple shots from the 10' Leavenworth Cruise

Here are some pics of it the day before the 11' Leavenworth Cruise and are the closes to what it looks like now.

Current interior shot

Thats all for now I will post more about it tomorrow and as the refresh goes on. And be more in depth about all the little changes I have done to it over the years.

91' Jetta
223,xxx miles
original 8v engine
New no code tranny from fine tuning (maybe if Chris sees this he can give more info about what it is)
1st gear 3.45 2nd 2.05 3rd 1.37 4th 1.03 5th .085. Final drive is 3.81

The mod list,

Under the hood:
Eurosport cold air intake with a K&N filter instead of the ITG foam filter
Techtonics Tuning high flow cat and cat back exhaust with a Flowmaster muffler
BFI solid billet front engine mount
Deleted all the cruise control crap

Lighting:
Smoked Euro E-Codes with city lights
City lights are control by a working blank dummy switch
Added factory big bumper fog lights, wired in with a piaa relayed fog light harness to a factory switch. And modified with MKIII fog light projectors.
Smoked turn signals and side marker lights

Stereo:
Pioneer head unit
Sirius radio
Infinity Reference spereates in the front and coaxils in the rear deck
I made my own tweeter mounts for the factory speaker dash spot
RockerFosgate mono amp and 12" sub

I think that covers everything for now. Heading out in a bit to start working on it.

I wouldn't call it immaculate right now, it's probably the dirtest it has ever been.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabbit 16v

except for the DS rear door... [avoids getting punched]

If I had a dollar for every conversation with someone about my car that started or ended with "Nice car, to bad about the door", I could afford to grab any door and have it repainted. I swear everytime there is a alpine white car in pick-n-pull the same door is ****ed up.

The paint really needs to be buffed to take some of the scratches out, I keep trying to get my little brother to do it as he has been a professional detailer for about 10 years(?). But I think the new place he is at is pretty strict about doing friends and familys cars for free.

Todays progress report, I cleaned every electrical connection I could think of under the hood, changed out the cheap after market ground cable with a OEM one out of a MKIII, put a new used air flow meter in it, and changed the plugs, plug wires, cap and rotor, also cleaned the icv. And did a little OEM plus clean project that I think came out good refer to the up coming pictures for info.

Todays box of parts

The starting point for the day

New used OEM Mkiii ground cable and the cheap after market one that has always been in it
Before
After

And the OEM plus clean up project, ever since I have owned the car the way the spark wires just are kinda there like octopus arms has driven me nuts and yes I have OCD. But really no matter what I did they looked messy.

So the other week when I was tuning up my gf's MkIII golf I had a light bulb go off! I went to pick-n-pull and grabbed the mounts and wire holder off of a 2.0 MkIII and I think outcome is a much cleaner looking engine bay.

So after 50 miles with the new chip I am very happy! Off the line and part throttle third gear runs are much better. Car definately has more pep in it's step. Only negative so far is when it's cold or been sitting for awhile the idle is a little bouncy upon start up, but soons as you go a block it's fine.The instructions said you might need to fine tune the idle a little, but it really isn't that bad I will see how it does this week and play with it next weekend.

Only did one project today lost motivation after lunch and I am not feeling completely healthy. Ran to pick-n-pull to get a MKIII positive cable to go along with the negative one. It is a lot thicker and the car starts way easier now. It looks a little messier than before though , but everything is easier to disconnect now.

Still trying to decide if I am going to mess the idle at all. It only hunts for the first couple of minutes when I first start it when it's completely cold. But it's fine by the tim I hit the stop sign at the end of the block (like a half block). It's perfect from then on and starting when it's still a little warm. I am afraid if I try to tweek it at all it will get pissy all the time.

Pulled everything out and mocked it up for the rear sway, going to install it this weekend I think.

Got the rear sway bar installed tonight and I am very happy with it! Took it for some test runs on some local roads I know very well and drive often so I could easly tell a difference. Wanted to get it installed before I changed the front sway bar end links and the struts for the same reason. Was really happy how easily I was able to install it by myself.

Felt great definately could tell the difference. Also buying the chip for my car was the best $50 bucks I have ever spent on a car! My brother rode with me tonight and he noticed how different it was just riding in it.

Not going to make any progress this weekend. But I am going to be driving a couple of hundred miles tomorrow, so I will get a real good feel for the sway bar and the chip on the freeway. My daily commute is short and all city.

Drove a couple hundred miles today and I am even in more in love the chip. I have chipped other cars I have owned but this seems like the biggest difference I have ever noticed before. I am also really happy with the sway bar, went to my daughters house today and the road is nice and curvy and I had way more fun than usual on it. Now I just need to get the new struts in.